TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands (Long) Sailing School - Trip Report - July 4-10

After having a couple weeks to settle back in at home, decompress a bit, and process my thoughts, here is my trip report for our week at sailing school.

My husband ("LivinLarge" on TTOL) and I chose to go with Virgin Island Sailing School out of St. Thomas. We enrolled in their “series 2” week, which includes ASA 103, 104 and 114. We signed up back in February and received our books just a short while later. We studied diligently and I did well on all the practice tests in the books. Still, I was a bit nervous ahead of time, thinking how mortified I’d be if I failed a test. Ha! My husband was fairly confident, as he has some past sailing experience.

Our captain was Scott Dempster, who is also co-owner of the sailing school. The boat we were on for the week was “Silver Lining”, a 47’ Leopard Catamaran. Scott picked us up at the dock at our agreed upon time and dingied us over to the boat. There were two other couples already aboard. They had arrived a day ahead of us to start the ASA 101 course, which we had already done at home.

We were afraid of a “mixed bag” crew, and not knowing personalities ahead of time. Turns out everyone got along fairly well, except for one female in the group. I’m being nice when I say she was a holy terror. I don’t even know how her husband puts up with her. She made for so many tense situations and was one of the most self-centered people I’ve ever encountered. But, live and learn. We all tolerated her as best we could.

The 101 group had provisioned prior to our arrival, so we had no input into that. Not a real big issue, as I can meal plan, etc., and really didn’t need lessons. We did have to re-provision twice during the week, but that is to be expected.

One of the shortcomings of the class, and we did share this insight with Scott, was that there was no actual briefing about kitchen duties, keeping it clean, cleaning up after yourself, etc. I washed dishes the first day on the boat (dishes I had not used) just because I couldn’t stand the pile in the sink. If I cooked, I cleaned up, or my husband cleaned up. The other crew simply left dishes in the sink. One couple did dishes a few times, but by the end of the week it was ridiculous. I intentionally ignored their messes, while hubby and I cleaned up after ourselves. Anyway, Captain Scott agreed he should make this part of his briefing, but he indicated he had never seen a crew behave this way. (Dirty dishes were left for him when we disembarked at the end of the week.)

Now, on to the good stuff – some actual learning! I learn so much better “hands-on” than I do from a book. Everything I had read in the books started to make more sense to me as the week unfolded. I shadowed the captain all week long, taking every opportunity I could to get real, hands-on, practical experience. I asked every question that came to mind, whether I thought it sounded stupid or not. If it was time to raise or lower a sail, or tack, or whatever, I made an effort to be right there either directly participating or watching other crew members.

July 4, we started off from Red Hook with hubby sailing. Our first night, was spent at Leinster Bay, St. John. We had dinner aboard and enjoyed a peaceful evening watching the glow of fireworks from the other side of the hill. The following morning, we set out toward Soper’s Hole to check in to the BVI. We encountered a slight problem during maybe our second or third tack, when the headsail (already slightly torn) caught on the radar and tore a pretty good (3 foot) hole at the seam. The sail was caught and we couldn’t do anything but motor head-to-wind and try to get it down. After some trial and error we were able to furl it in and motor to Soper’s.

After getting us checked in, the captain reviewed 101 with that part of the crew, and then started their testing. One of the crew was testing on 105, at the same time. So, hubby and I were on “quiet time” until they finished. The aforementioned “holy terror” had read none of the class materials prior to the trip, so it was a full class for her, and she took over an hour and a half to finish the test. I actually believe one of the others hadn’t studied either, but they enrolled last minute, so I can understand that.

After they finished testing, we made a list and went ashore to re-provisioning (yes, on day 2!). Afterward, we spent some time practicing motoring skills in the harbor. Captain Scott had removed the headsail and found a contact for sail repair in Sea Cow bay. We eventually motored to Sea Cow Bay toward evening time. We spent the night here, with another dinner aboard. Anchoring here was a comedy of errors, but there are lessons in everything.

The following day, while we waited on the sail repair, we reviewed and tested on the 103 course. We then reviewed our results and tested on knot tying. After the sail was repaired, hubby and I got to help with reinstalling it. The captain actually trusted my knots to attach the jib sheets to the clew! Yay!

Now it was time to actually do some sailing! We set out on the channel, taking turns at the helm. Our goal was to make it to Virgin Gorda by dinner time. We tacked and tacked for hours, and when we were within reaching distance of Cooper Island we made the decision to stop there for the night.

We had 30 minutes until the end of happy hour. Rounding up the crew was like herding cats, and ate up 15 minutes of our happy hour. Hubby and I decided to stay ashore for dinner and have a break from the crew, and then one by one the entire crew decided they would dine ashore too. The food was absolutely delicious, and the service was great. Even so, “the terror” managed to make everyone uncomfortable with her antics. Some people are just constant drama. (Trust me when I say I have censored myself with regard to how horrible this woman was!)

Anyway, I’d love to go back to Cooper on our next trip and really spend some time enjoying it.

Before bedtime, hubby got permission from the captain to get up early the next morning and start motoring to Virgin Gorda, so we could hit The Baths before the hordes. We were up and out of there with no trouble at all and the very first to arrive at The Baths. We picked up a ball, swam ashore and hubby and I made a beeline for Top of The Baths for some peace and quiet and breakfast. What a beautiful morning!

We left the Baths before noon and sailed into Spanish Town for fuel, water and more provisions, and then started making our way to Anegada. We practiced jibing and tacking, fine tuning sail trim, etc. I sailed a good portion of the way and got a pretty good feel for it.

I had a little hiccup when it came time to pull into the anchorage at Anegada. I had asked the Captain to stay right by my side, because this is one part I’m very nervous about – maneuvering in what feels to me like tight quarters. He was nowhere to be found at the time, and my husband was left to instruct me. (I found out later the captain had taken an important call from home at that time.) Now, my husband and I don’t communicate very well on “technical” issues sometimes, which is why we (I) needed an instructor…so this went south pretty quickly. I abandoned the helm and let him take over after some raised voices (mostly my voice). Once we were anchored, rather than taking a cooling off period, I decided now would be a good time to chew out the captain for leaving my side. I felt like a complete [censored] later, and apologized profusely.

By this point it was late afternoon, so we went ashore and made dinner reservations for hubby, myself and the one other couple whose company we were enjoying. We headed back to the boat, cleaned up for dinner, and dingied back over to enjoy a fine meal at Wonky Dog. I love this place so much!

The next day we had some free time, so the entire crew took a taxi over to Cow Wreck to enjoy a few drinks and that gorgeous view. I don’t think I’d ever get tired of that place! I had a couple of pretty strong vodka/sodas and the afternoon was spent sobering up while listening to the captain instruct on how to sail wing on wing, rig preventers, etc. Once I felt like I wouldn’t kill us all, I took the helm and sailed wing on wing for about an hour or more. This was a totally different feeling and I loved it - very peaceful! We sailed to Diamond Cay and anchored out in front of Foxy’s Taboo. We went ashore for a drink and then back to cook dinner aboard.

The following morning we reviewed for 104 and then took the test. After every test, the captain would go over our results with us, and review any questions we missed. I found this to be particularly helpful and understood why I had made the mistakes I made. We also tested on our knot tying skills individually for the captain.

After testing, we took out in the direction of Cane Garden Bay and took turns heaving to. When the captain was satisfied we all understood it, we headed off to Jost to anchor in White Bay for the night.

We arrived in plenty of time to enjoy a Painkiller or two at Soggy Dollar, and say hello to some friends. We made reservations at Corsair’s and had Greg from Perfect Pineapple taxi us over to Foxy’s for some shopping. He dropped us right in front of Foxy, and I introduced the crew to him. He told us a joke or two and everyone was glad to meet him.

After shopping and we strolled down to Corsair’s for dinner. The pizza was good as always, and Vinnie has been extremely cordial during our last two visits. It was a nice ending to our last night of school.

Friday morning we had our 114 test, a discussion/question and answer session. Afterward we headed into the channel for MOB drills. Then we were off to Cruz Bay to check back in to the US and head back to St. Thomas.

Our last skill was docking. I was nervous as a cat! I told the captain not to leave my side. Do you think he did? Ha ha!! He stuck pretty close by my side and I did just fine. The captain fueled up while we disembarked and then the crew posed for a group picture with our ASA log books (everyone passed) and went on our separate ways.

Hubby and I headed for Tap & Still where we had our first really decent beer of the trip. Captain Scott joined us for a burger and couple of drinks. We shared our thoughts and critiques on the week and said farewell to him. We stayed on for a few hours, drinking beer, relaxing and listening to a local band. A great end to a good trip.

I recommend the school with the following caveats:

1. Scott seems a little “ADHD” and can get off on a tangent during lessons. He knows this, and actually acknowledge it a time or two. Still, if you are a “stay on task” type person, it can be annoying or distracting or infuriating, depending on your tolerance level.
2. The boat has A/C but you will likely never use it. On the first day, I was horrified by the thought of going without it. Luckily we had plenty of wind almost every night, so it wasn’t a huge issue. The only time it was a real factor was during a few night time rains we encountered. It can get really muggy, really fast in a closed up cabin.
3. The kitchen situation, which I hope was a fluke was less than desirable. I don’t understand grown adults not cleaning up after themselves, or a captain who just let it happen. Hopefully he takes our advice to heart and adds this to his briefings.
4. Know that unless you book a class with only people you like, you might get someone you don’t necessarily want to live with for a week. This is no reflection on the sailing school, however.
5. While you will have plenty of time to hit restaurants and bars, this is not a vacation! Again no reflection on the school, just a reality to be aware of.

All in all it was a good trip and I feel confident about going out on a catamaran with my husband now. We are now looking forward to booking a trip for next spring/summer.